USB Flash Drive Problem

[PzkfW]

My computer running Windows XP Service Pack 2 Home Edition ran slow all of a sudden, but thanks to a previous thread I've made on here, malwarebytes took care of it. Appearantly I had 25 trojans. I restarted and everything was fine. Ran malwarebytes again and it said I had no problems.

Everything works fine, same specs under load, internet is fine, same ping on servers.

However, I can no longer connect flash drives. The sound registers when I plug it in, hardware manager detects it, but when I go into My computer it is not there. It used to be drive N, trying to go there from windows explorer doesn't work either.

I googled this and read that you should right click on my computer, hit disk management, and rename the flash drive under a new path letter. However, it doesn't even appear in the list!

The flash drive from cruzer with the U3 software loads the M drive for the U3 software (like it did before) , but no space. A generic flash drive does not show anything at all.

Every other usb device works fine, and the flash drives work on another computer.


Thanks for help and replies!

[glc]

The trojans may have screwed with your system files - try a repair reinstall.

Repair Reinstallation of Windows XP (using XP CD)

[hammer_]

Scan your computer with the "Microsoft AutoPlay Repair Wizard". It will scans your computer devices to find defective AutoPlay settings, and attempts to fix those it finds.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en

[PzkfW]

Well, I appearantly got a lot of trojans. I don't know where these came from, I have been going to the same sites for a while now and haven't experienced anything bad except recently.

I don't have my XP CD as I started with a prebuilt. I did however a while back buy a Vista Upgrade CD.
Is upgrading a good idea without formatting my hard drive ? Would these viruses still be here?

I can't even get into regedit, and my folder options tab has been removed. Please help!

[PzkfW]

Okay, I just got back into regedit with a run command.

http://www.technize.com/2007/07/02/r...administrator/

My computer is still fine besides the USB flash drives, so my main question now would be if upgrading to vista would be a good idea. No XP CD, sorry.

[glc]

Only if you WANT Vista, and I'd do a total wipe and install Vista clean. You CAN clean install Vista with an upgrade CD, instructions are available if you do a Google search.

What brand is the computer? You can probably do a clean XP install from the recovery partition.

[PzkfW]

Originally Posted by glc and I'd do a total wipe and install Vista clean.

I have two hard drives, can I move everything to the second and install vista (reformat) on the first?

Originally Posted by glc What brand is the computer? You can probably do a clean XP install from the recovery partition.

It "used" to be an HP, but I have pretty much changed everything in it, so it's custom by now.

Also, if I do use the "upgrade" CD, can I still have XP, or will it completely erase XP and only have vista?

Probably noob questions, sorry. I've put in hardware and messed around with settings and such but I've never really had to install an OS, so I don't really know too much about them.
Thanks for your help and replies.

[glc]

First question - yes.

Second question - I recommended a WIPE. That would wipe XP.

[PzkfW]

Thanks a lot for the help, I will probably be upgrading to vista in the future when I have time to sort everything out.

However I looked around a bit about XP not being able to find flash drives. I've tried most of the things they recommended (also the autoplay that "hammer_" reccommended did not work (the flash drive didn't appear in the list), but thank you for trying), but I saw another site tell someone to, through Device Manager in My computer, uninstall everything under "Universal Serial Bus Controllers", claiming that they would be reinstalled upon startup.

I found this supposed fix at
http://www.suggestafix.com/index.php...0&#entry204095


Would that be a good idea, or could that muck everything up? I wanted to confirm that before I go and pretty much right click my computer away!

Thanks again!

[glc]

Go ahead and nuke all the USB controllers and hubs out of device manager - it won't hurt and they will all reinstall on restart anyway.